There is a bit of a myth about Japanese grammar--that it is too complicated, too alien for the non-native speaker to ever really master. This is a myth that many Japanese perpetuate themselves, seen in characterizations of non-native speakers, or in the (unhelpful) praise lavished upon anyone who can speak Japanese to any degree, no matter how ungrammatical it may be. This is a myth that is also unfortunately and unintentionally perpetuated by guides like Jorden's "Japanese the Spoken Language" that do the learner a disservice by explaining grammatical points in a language better suited for a linguist than a language learner. For people like you, who presumably want to surpass these low expectations and confusing explanations and start on the road to true fluency, "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" is an essential companion.

Let's face it--from the perspective of a native English speaker, mastering Japanese grammar is difficult. Very difficult. Don't trust anyone who says otherwise! Much is made of the difficult writing system, but mastering grammar is perhaps even more difficult and essential to smooth communication. Sure, learning the difference between "wa" and "ga" is not as sexy as learning how to write "love" or "raccoon dog" in kanji, but it's many times more useful on a daily basis. By providing easy-to-understand explanations as well as examples of both good and bad usage, the student is given a better understanding of basic (but still difficult-to-master) grammatical points. This dictionary does an especially good job of contrasting similar constructs that give beginning-to-intermediate (and even many advanced) students trouble (wa/ga, aida/uchi, ageru/kureru, hazu/beki, ni/de etc.)

Although I don't think it's possible to gain complete comfort and mastery of Japanese without living in Japan, or at the very least, interacting with Japanese people on a regular basis, this book is the perfect guide for explaining the nuances that a beginner might not notice, and an intermediate student might be aware of but not fully understand. This includes the deceptive "similar constructs" I mentioned before, words that are not easy to translate into English (sekkaku, darou come to mind), and other issues such as auxiliary verbs and onomatopoetic "sound words". Whether you're learning Japanese in school, living abroad in Japan, or even just studying on your own, "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" is an indispensable companion for your studies.

One last comment--there are a few reviews that have comments along the lines of "yes, but the Japanese don't really talk like this" to which I say, "You're missing the point." That's a bit like arguing against learning multiplication tables because in the "real world" there are calculators. Sure it would be nice to go directly from "Please give me that pen" to "Hey man, can ya grab that pen over there for me?" but language learning isn't that easy. If you understand the fundamentals of grammar, you will understand Japanese of all formalities, dialects, and other variations and transmutations. It is much easier to learn the shortcuts once you have a strong foundation because you are in a position to understand the nuances and principles involved. In other words, you know and understand what exactly is being "shortcutted". If you only learn the shortcuts, you will have a hard time generalizing your knowledge for usage out of a narrow, specific context. Worse, you might not even realize that you are even making a grammatical or etiquette mistake by misapplying knowledge from one context to another. The worst thing a language learner can do is to try to take shortcuts to "speed up" his or her progress without taking the time to build up a steady base. This dictionary provides that strong foundation that is needed for the serious Japanese language learner.

It is more than 1 year since the last review for this book was written here, but reading through all the reviews there seems almost only to be positive comments about this book (the few negative comments there are, are rather unimportant things). BUT this book, used wrongly, may very well teach you Japanese that has never been heard from a native speaker's mouth.

The information provided in the book is overwhelming and the explanations are almost too good to be true. However, depending on what you are trying to learn from the book, in may get you in big trouble.
I am currently living in Japan and trying to pick up the language, and one thing I have come to understand is that there is not only one Japanese language ... but several. There is spoken langauge (actually there are 2 spoken languages, formal and informal), there is written language in books etc., there is news paper language, there is subtitle language (this is a fancy one!) and there are probably many more.
This is not a unique feature to the Japanese language, that is not the point I am trying to make, but especially the difference between spoken language and written language in general is so destinctive, that you must be very well aware of it.

Now, what has all this to do with the book that this review is about? A whole lot!
One evening when I sat at the dinner table studying my host brother (I live with a host family) came down from his room, saw me and placed himself on the chair besides me. He asked me what I was doing, and I of course answered `studying Japanese`. I was reading some random entry from "A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar" and when I showed it to him he started laughing and asked me why I was studying weird stuff like that.
Of course I had no idea what he was talking about, so he explained me that what I was studying was not useful at all. He had only read it once in a book but never heard it in a conversation (he is 30 and native Japanese). After consulting my hostdad he agreed as well, the stuff I was reading was useless and waste of time to study.

That little incident made me start asking my Japanese friends about stuff I had learnt from this book, and a lot of the entries they told, they never used in normal conversation.
When purchasing this book and starting to use it as a study aid or grammar reference, you should definitely have some native speaker to ask, whether what you are studying is useful at all, because the authors of this book completely fail to provide any information on where you will find the grammar you are studying. Some of the grammatical expressions in book, you will never hear in a conversation and others are restricted to movie subtitles. So if you use this book without being critical you will end up with an understandable and grammatically correct but extremely odd Japanese.

As I said earlier the Japanese used in subtitles is a category itself. "Subtitle Japanese" is a paradise for people who has used "A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar", but you will never hear it in daily life conversations.
So please be careful to use this great but dangerous book!